By Dr. Anan Ameri
USA, 2007, 192 pages, $35

The Arab American National Museum (AANM) has released a new book that recounts the five-year odyssey that led to the 2005 opening of the first-ever Arab American museum, an institution that remains unique among the 17,500 museums in the United States.

Written by the Museum’s founding director, Dr. Anan Ameri, Telling Our Story: The Arab American National Museum is also a colourful visual reference of the Museum’s permanent exhibits - Coming To America, Living In America, and Making An Impact - with hundreds of photos and accompanying text that translate the Museum experience to the printed page.

“This book chronicles the journey that millions of Arab immigrants have made in building a new life in the United States, as well as the journey that my colleagues and I took in travelling the country to build the collection of real-life stories and related artifacts that became our permanent exhibits,” says Ameri. “The book is an excellent souvenir for Museum visitors, but more importantly, it allows those who cannot visit the Museum in person to experience some of its core content.”

Dr. Anan Ameri, a Palestinian American who emigrated to the U.S. from Amman, Jordan, is a widely respected sociologist, scholar and author on Arabs and Arab Americans. Ameri holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Wayne State University, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies in 1996. She earned her M.A. from Cairo University in Egypt, and her B.A. from the University of Jordan in Amman. Ameri joined ACCESS (the Museum’s parent organization) in 1997 as director of cultural arts programmes, which led her to conceive, plan and raise $16 million for the creation of the Arab American National Museum, which opened in May 2005.

The Arab American National Museum documents, preserves, celebrates, and educates the public on the history, life, culture, and contributions of Arab Americans. It serves as a resource to enhance knowledge and understanding about Arab Americans and their presence in the USA. The Arab American National Museum is a project of ACCESS, a Dearborn, Michigan-based non-profit human services and cultural organization. The Museum is an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Telling Our Story: The Arab American National Museum is available in the online store at www.arabamericanmuseum.org.